


killing time (can i kill it with you)

by scrxbble



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Beaches, Friendship, Gen, Hot Boys Summer, The Band of Boys, hbs au where they never leave the beach, long ass sentences and four part parallels galore in this one gang, this fic is canon for one more day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrxbble/pseuds/scrxbble
Summary: it's midnight and the beach - and the four boys on it - are silent.or, the last night of the band of boys
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	killing time (can i kill it with you)

**Author's Note:**

> happy hbs eve this fic is technically still canon right now  
> title from 400 lux by lorde and all the alternate titles are also lorde

It was late: two or three in the morning. Past midnight, anyways. Somewhere a few thousand yards down the beach there was a bonfire, and dark figures silhouetted in its flames sat and laughed and danced and drank. Here, though, it was quiet, lit only by a sliver of a crescent moon and the distant lights from the boardwalk, where even the late night attractions were starting to close. The air was hot, despite the dark, and humid, despite the wind that brought the taste of the ocean to the four of them that sat in silent reverence, making noise only when they shifted to find a more comfortable position on the damp sand or brought the neck of a half-full bottle to their lips; otherwise, they were mute, staring out at the vast expanse of sea before them or stars above them, each caught up in a wave of their own thoughts.

Someone stirred when the tide started to get closer to their extremities, lap at Tred’s hair where he lay facing the sky, drowsily tapping one foot back and forth to some rhythm in his own head. “Should we head back?” Dave suggested, propping himself up on his elbows, gaze still transfixed by the water. His gold scales glinted in the moonlight as he moved, and Mavrus glanced over at their shimmer, pulling his eyes away from the dark horizon.

“Not yet?” Tred asked, rolling over from where he had been lying, silently mouthing lyrics to himself but not daring to move to write them. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to, anyways; these felt like words that he didn’t need to write down for fear of forgetting, words that needed to be kept only in his own mind and his own heart. He left his notebook with the rest of his things further up the shore and pleaded, “Let’s stay for a while longer.”

Mavrus nodded sleepily and returned his half-lidded stare to the ocean, near-silent waves rippling across the shore with the slightest whisper of promises and memories as they returned to sea. The sand was harsh on his elbows as he lay, face down, propping up his chin with both hands, but he could ignore it - the way they were all ignoring the fact that it was their last night.

Mac stayed silent, and normally that would have worried his friends, made them think he was upset at some slight or another, but tonight it was because of no fault on their part, or even on his part. Just a fault on the universe’s part, on whatever god of time had hurried the summer along before they could properly enjoy it, sped the days past them so fast they were a blur of bottles and beaches and banter that no one had stopped long enough to appreciate - but then, no one had told them while they’d been in those moments that they were anything special, that they were the moments Mac was most loathe to lose. They had just been  _ life _ : mixing them cocktails that weren’t as good as beer but were certainly stronger; getting sunburnt every other day until Dave and Tred took turns making sure every inch of him was slathered white with sunscreen before they stepped outside; spending mornings and evenings and inbetweens half-asleep and making jokes that didn’t make any sense but didn’t need to, circled around a fourtop table or on couches in the living room or spread out on the beach like they were now. If not for the heaviness that weighed over them, it could have been any other night: Dave, flat on his back, his feet to the ocean, occasionally spilling beer when he went to drink it without sitting up first; Mavrus next to him, an opposite picture with his stomach and elbows and knees digging into the sand, eyes fixed on the water; Mac, hunched over half cross-legged, hugging one knee to his chest and spending as much time watching his friends as he did the water; and Tred, who’d returned to lying on his back like Dave was but with his head, cushioned on a rolled up towel, closest to the waves that had tried to drown him more than once, distracted from the threat of nature by the steady half-notes of the waves washing onto the sand.

They all knew they weren’t usually so quiet, that someone should have made some joke by now, but they also knew that each of them was worried to break the hazy spell summer had cast on them and validate why they weren’t going back towards the beach house that had been their home for the past couple months. None of them wanted to admit to knowing that, because to speak the fact aloud - to say that once they got back in and went to sleep, they’d wake up the next morning and  _ leave _ \- to say it aloud was letting the universe know, and the universe, as they all knew, had a terrible way of making things happen.

But the universe was going to make it happen no matter what they said aloud, and finally Mac sighed gruffly, clearing his throat, daring them to mention the fact that his voice was thick with almost-tears. “What time, again?”

Mavrus didn’t move, but he spoke, words -  _ word - _ corrupted by the hands still fast on his chin. “Noon.”

Tred didn’t move, either - he froze, in fact, the rhythm his foot had been keeping no longer matching his heart, which had been stopping all day. “Man, fuck your parents, dude,” he offered, eyes searching for some secret to stopping time in the sky above them. “They’re such pricks, dude.”

A murmur of assent came from Mac and Dave, who’d reached out one clawed hand to lay on Mavrus’s calf - the closest part he could reach. Mavrus, though, didn’t say anything for a moment, just sighed and kept staring out at the water. Finally, he spoke again.

“Yeah.”

Mac took his cue to put a hand on Mavrus’s back. Tred rearranged himself so he could touch Mavrus’s shoulder gently. The waves spoke more, but only they made any noise in the darkness as the night dragged on.

Mavrus was thinking about how he hadn’t packed at all, and his clothes were scattered around the house from the eight times he’d switched bedrooms, and he wasn’t even sure if the one pair of swim trunks that he  _ had _ managed to pack were his or if they’d been Dave’s at one point.

Dave was thinking about how there was no point in staying after Mavrus left, because they knew the house would seem too big and too quiet and too empty without him filling doorways and chairs and crashing on the couch instead of going up one flight of stairs to whatever empty bed he was in that night, and so they’d agreed to all leave at once, but now it seemed sacrilege to abandon that little house and its sandy corners and softened edges and the tackiest fucking decorations this side of the sea to silence and dust and way fewer complaints from the neighbors.

Mac was thinking about how strange it would be to return to a bed that wasn’t loud with beer cans or full half the time of someone else taking a nap or impossible to get to sleep in because of the hum of the generator next to it and how those things had been annoying at first, but he got used to the litter and the loudness and the love that was creased into those sheets just as deeply as it could be.

Tred was thinking about the secrets he’d meant to show the others: the late-hatching baby birds that lived in a nest in a corner of the side porch that no one went on after the wasps that first day, the little window at the top of the stairwell from which you could see further into the unending sea than anywhere else, the way that each of them looked so similar and yet so different whenever they crashed on the couch (which they all did at one point or another). Mavrus slept like he walked, wide-flung arms and attention-grabbing snores, always fully awake from his naps after a single sip of beer. Mac curled up small, slept in armchairs in tight uncomfortable-looking poses, was only ever asleep for half an hour before he was up again for their next adventure. Dave fell asleep like dads did, mostly upright on a couch or at the table, eyes drooping until they were shut, never quite snoring, never admitting to having slept after he was shaken awake.

Tred didn’t know that the others knew his secrets, too, and thought they were  _ their _ secrets, and that when he took naps he talked in his sleep, and that the others made sure he remembered the lyrics he’d been saying when he awoke.

None of them dared to sleep now, afraid that letting themselves fall asleep would bring the morning about too fast, but it came anyways, the sky lightening in front of them to a hazy pink that reminded them that they were hungry, and tired, and they’d ran out of beers around four am. Even so, despite stiff limbs that begged to move and stomachs nearly revolting against them, no one moved until Mavrus did, shaking off their still-gentle hands and pushing himself upright. The others followed, brushing sand off knees and hands, watching the light creep closer to them and their schism, dreading the full light of day and what it would bring: Mavrus’s father, packing his stuff up for Gladeholm; searching for lost flip-flops and abandoned sweatshirts and sacrificing them at the altar that was the corners of the house; leaving the house white and clean and with no memory of their nights spent there other than the memories that they held. 

Dave slung a heavy, aching arm around Mavrus’s shoulders. “You sure, dude?” he asked, not entirely clear himself of what Mavrus was supposed to be sure about.

Mavrus didn’t know either, but he nodded, sighed. “Yeah. Thanks, bro.” He glanced at Tred and Mac, who were both trying to hold in tears and almost succeeding. “Thanks, all of you.”

Mavrus didn’t get sappy, but he came as close as he ever did. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

Mac patted his calf. “We’ll miss you too, Mav.”

“I’m gonna miss the beach,” Tred added with a sigh. He didn’t mean the beach, really, but it meant his friends and his secrets and the way the waves were crashing on the shore like music.

“Me, too,” said Mac, and he didn’t really mean the beach either, but it meant the four of them and their little house on the water and the way the sun looked rising over the water.

“Me, three,” agreed Dave, and he meant the beach, but he also meant his boys and their sandy feet and the way their shadows in the dawn sun looked like one big beautiful creature.

Mavrus nodded, and they all knew what the others had meant, and without a word they turned and started the walk back up the cool sand, and in the next few hours Mavrus would have to find his toothbrush and there would be an argument over who had to clean the bathroom and the milk would have gone bad, but for that moment, it was a perfect ending.

**Author's Note:**

> i am going to explode tomorrow when hbs drops please explode w me


End file.
